


ouroboros

by chlorinetrifluoride



Series: snakes in the water [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: First War with Voldemort, Gen, Mental Breakdown, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-26
Updated: 2015-08-26
Packaged: 2018-04-17 07:10:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4657317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chlorinetrifluoride/pseuds/chlorinetrifluoride
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>you are calypso shacklebolt, you are twenty-two, and death eaters have been torturing you for the longest time.<br/>as you lose your mind, you come to the greatest discovery ever.<br/>you realize that life is not a line.<br/>it is a circle.</p><p>(note: this fic will probably not make much sense unless you've read the rest of the series)</p>
            </blockquote>





	ouroboros

**Author's Note:**

> just bits of things i've written from cal's point of view  
> may or may not continue it to cover more of her life  
> haven't really decided either way

**july 1981**

your muscles have gone past sore to positively screaming. you’ve been shackled at the wrists up to a hook hanging from the ceiling of this chamber for so long that time no longer has any real meaning. you measure the passage of hours by the number of breaths you can take between each new “crucio!” hurled in your direction. bellatrix lestrange is having a field day with you, you can tell. each time she hits you, she giggles and claps.

 _“oh, callie, oh, callie, callie, callie,”_ she croons, running one warm finger down your cheek.

at some point, she brings narcissa downstairs to show her what she’s caught.

“see what kind of friends you have? look at her! been in the order of the phoenix the entire time!” bellatrix sneers, and leaves, still cackling. faint screams from elsewhere clue you into the fact that you may not be the only traitor the death eaters discovered.

meanwhile, narcissa walks all the way over to you, close enough to reach out and touch you. she taps the chains with her wand, and shatters them.

“much obliged, mrs. malfoy.”

she sighs, and summons a nearby goblet, not quite able to look you in the face. apparently, you’re in the malfoy wine cellar. she fills the goblet with water, and has you drink from it.  

“i can’t let you go.”

you nod.

“i realize that.”

she touches your wrist with her fingertips, at the place where the chains dug in. “if i could, maybe…”

“no use in wishful thinking,” you reply.

she raises her wand, showing off the sleeve linings of her expensive robes. “what’s the spell to heal injuries?”

“you wouldn’t want to heal me, even if you could. too obvious.”

“to reduce pain, then? is there a spell?”

repeated exposure to the cruciatus has made your head a little fuzzy, but the answer comes quickly enough.

“opia maxima. you make a cross motion over the area of injury.”

she performs the requisite spellwork. it’s nowhere near as good as what you can do, and besides, pain is usually treated by potions. even so, you appreciate the gesture, and what it means.

narcissa links your arm in hers, and rests her head on your shoulder. you lack the strength to shrug it away.

as usual, her light hair smells of peonies. eleven years since you met her, and she still uses the same potions to maintain it.

“how is little draco?” you ask her, searching for something to talk about besides your imminent demise. you’re sick of her pity. it does not serve you, nor does it serve her. it makes the both of you liabilities.

“his heart is stronger now,” she tells you.

you manage something of a smile in response.

“good.”

before she returns upstairs, she replaces the shackles, and apologizes.

it’s a long time before anyone comes back for you. and of course, the one who breaks the monotony is bellatrix, who has nothing for you but unforgivable curses in rapid succession.

you can give the death eaters no information without compromising an unbreakable vow, so they handed you off to their most ruthless. disposal duty, nothing more.

after she deems you sufficiently cowed, she leaves in the same fashion. maybe she really does have other people to inflict her unique breed of sadism upon. you hope none of them are augustine. or sirius. or anyone you know. problem is, you know everyone.

maybe bellatrix realized it was easier to break one’s prisoners by alternating periods of torment and isolation, as opposed to merely keeping the former constant. easier to disorient your charges that way, to rend the fabric of their reality into shreds.

in 1975, you give horatio avery detention for hexing a muggleborn student named ivy chang. bellatrix hits you with the cruciatus.

in 1976, rabastan lestrange asks you to marry him. bellatrix hits you with the cruciatus, but not before she displays you to her brother in law, who leaves without saying a word. you gaze down at your engagement ring and squeeze your eyes shut.

in 1977, narcissa asks you to be in her wedding party while you study for an exam on venoms and poisons. you hear nothing but the steady drip of a leaky faucet in the next room. bellatrix heals you and leaves, but you want her back so very much. the overstimulation of key areas of your limbic system is almost preferable to the hollow of nothingness.

in a year you can no longer identify, narcissa returns, and dithers over your condition. she swears something to you, makes you a promise because you treated her child, the only child she would ever bear, and because you have been one of her dearest friends, and you ignore her.

in 1966, uncle kingsley warns you that all actions hav consequences, and all you can do is scream because you have been under this curse for thirty-five consecutive seconds without respite, and you understand the consequences, you finally understand. _please, yield. please, something give, anything, anything at all. let me die,_ you beg. you are tired of waiting to die.

darkness. agony. darkness. agony. like one of the muggles flipping a light switch.

then, you watch a dragonfly perch on the tip of your nose, and amid the lilt of a voice you barely recognize, a woman singing.

her melody endures, even as the strong arms of a man carry you away from your holding chamber. sirius black curses in a tuneless discord, in counterpoint to the voices that resolve into major sevenths.

“narcissa sent a patronus, told us where you were,” augustine explains.

he flickers and blurs before you, like candlewax to a steady flame. you focus on the dragonfly and pay them no attention. they are merely hallucinations, unconvincing distractions.

in 1970, you sit with narcissa black on the hogwarts express for the first time. she spends half the resultant night braiding your hair.

your vision warps. the scenery changes.

your mother holds you against her chest, wafting up the aroma of incense, and whispering gentle reassurances in igbo. you retreat from the waking world, away from pain and cacophony, and straight into the oblivion of her embrace.

“you’ve done so well, my calypso. i am so proud.”

it does not matter that she died nearly twenty years ago.

**november 1961**

you don’t remember the accident that killed your parents, although you can sort of recall a lot of tall people in black robes and a lot of crying. you cry because they cry, and also because you are afraid of all these scary tall people.

arrangements are made for your uncle to take you in. his name is kingsley. he is the tallest person you’ve ever seen, but he isn’t scary, not at all.

one afternoon, he comes home with a present for you. it’s a stuffed dragonfly. you decide to carry it everywhere you go. at night, you sleep with it next to you.

**march 1962**

you finally name the dragonfly “antioch”, after a character in your favorite fairy tale. you have been told that you are smart, and so you are able to read all the words in the story, if you drag up a heavy chair, stand on it, and take the heavy book out of the bookcase.

antioch was a man who spoke to death and came away with the greatest wand of all time. even though your uncle suggests that the smartest brother was not antioch, but ignotus, you disagree with him.

“ignotus only got a cloak,” you protest, holding your dragonfly close. “we have cloaks in the closet.”

“not cloaks of invisibility.”

you think for a while. “but you _do_ have a cloak of invisibility, uncle. you showed it to me.”

“that is not a cloak like this one.”

he suggests to you that the point of the story lies not in the objects, but in the way that the brothers treated death. ignotus accepted death instead of trying to escape from it. all you know about death has to do with your parents, and the reason you cannot see them anymore.

it does not sound like something that should be accepted.

“why would anyone accept death?” you ask, a furrow between your eyebrows.

**april 1963**

your uncle is a very important man. but not like the minister of magic. your uncle is maybe even more important than that, because he is an auror. this means that he chases after bad wizards and catches them so they can face proper punishment.

he goes to the ministry of magic each morning and leaves you in the care of his house-elf, darcy. aside from calming you down whenever you misplace antioch, darcy makes sure that you stay in the house, that you eat three meals a day, and that you are not impish in any way.

you’re not sure what impish is exactly, but it seems to include not eating your vegetables, trying to stay up until your uncle gets home, and staring at bowls so hard that they explode. darcy gets very angry about the last thing whenever you do it, but uncle stares at you for a while and then laughs the first time he sees it.

“you’ll be a talented witch,” he says.

you do not quite understand what talented means, but you do know what a witch is, and you can’t wait.

**march 1964**

one night, you hear your uncle talking to one of his auror mates in the floo. you are not being a good girl. you are staying up late.

“nevertheless, dawlish, he is a repeat offender, and he should be disciplined more heavily for what he has done.”

a pause.

“why should it matter that they’re muggles?” your uncle asks. “a grave crime has been committed.”

you know enough from reading through your uncle’s books - from whatever you could manage to understand - what words like “crime” and “discipline” mean. muggle, though, that’s a new one.

in the morning, as darcy prepares breakfast, you sit at the dining room table, next to your uncle, who is doing what he always does during breakfast - looking through piles of parchment, and making notes on them with his quill. he is always very busy, and darcy has told you never to interrupt him.

still, you decide to ask him about the word you heard, because as far as you know, he knows absolutely everything.

you tug on the sleeve of his robes. “excuse me?”

darcy tells you to stay still, but uncle always has time for you.

“yes, my dear?”

“what’s a muggle?”

he puts aside his work, and sits you in his lap the way he always does when he is about to tell a long story.

“you must have been up past your bedtime,” he comments.

you nod guiltily, expecting him not to tell you now, because actions have consequences, as he has said to you before.

your uncle coughs to clear his voice. “muggles are people, just like us, but they are unable to use magic. therefore, they are forced to get by using different ways than we do, and it also means that they can be easily hurt by wizards. that is what i was talking about last night, a wizard hurting more than a few muggles.”

that part makes enough sense, but something continues to confuse you.

“why would a wizard do that? did the muggles do something bad?”

“not in this case,” he says, sighing. he accepts a cup of coffee from darcy and takes a sip. “remember when i told you the story of the dark wizards?”

**february 1966**

the year you start lessons at madam selwyn’s is the year you realize that you are different from all the other children.

like your uncle, you leave very early in the morning, but instead of going straight to the ministry, he drops you at madam selwyn’s first.

your uncle has taken you to what he calls “social obligations” before, although he always seems reluctant to attend them. you can understand why. they are usually boring affairs where everyone wears uncomfortable dress robes, and has extended conversations over nonsense. occasionally, there are dances, but you never get to dance.

the children, like you, are relegated to a different area to be supervised by house elves. most of them play gobstones, or have fake duels with twigs, but you prefer to sit by yourself and read.

madam selwyn’s is a place where young witches and wizards are sent to teach them the things they’ll need to succeed later on, and it kind of reminds you of those “social obligations”. it’s a stuffy, boring place, all the adults are strict, and your uniform robes are heavily cumbersome.

you study subjects like latin, greek, and mathematics. these, you are told, are academic. other subjects, like etiquette, and dance are not. you much prefer the academic things. when you tell your uncle this, he laughs and tells you that he isn’t surprised.

at madam selwyn’s there is also a period called break, where all of you are sent into a gigantic courtyard to play. there, you realize that you enjoy the fake duels that ensue when enough of you find enticing looking twigs in the lush, verdant grass. it’s fun to make up spells and pretend to cast them at your opponent, usually a boy. most of the girls at madam selwyn’s don’t play duel; they have pretend tea-parties.

your latin tutor, an old woman with crepe-paper skin, tells you that it’s unladylike to duel. you think that’s a load of bunk, but decide that is not something you should tell her. you’ve long since figured out that not all adults are like your uncle. a majority take offense when you disagree with them.

one afternoon, you disarm one boy by successfully poking him with your stick. he seems particularly angry about it, because he’s lost to a girl. he picks up a handful of soil and throws it at you, yelling that you look just like the dirt. you’re the same color, and everything.

you look around at the other children, notice how light their skin is, and realize that he’s right. you sit down in the grass and begin to cry, and then you cry even harder because you’re crying. you don’t like having emotional outbursts. you don’t like losing control.

another boy, perhaps the palest of the bunch, with brown hair and blue eyes, taps you on the shoulder and sits down next to you. you tell him to go away. when he does not, you perform another unladylike sin and shove him.

the boy gets up, but doesn’t leave.

“i don’t think you’re like the dirt,” he says. “i think macnair’s just a sore loser.”

you shrug.

“anyway, you’re good at dueling and stuff,” he continues. “i think i saw you actually make something move once.”

that gets your attention, though you doubt he’s being serious. _“you didn’t.”_

“are you saying i’m lying?” he asks, a small grin on his face.

“no,” you reply, shaking your head. “maybe you just need glasses.”

he snickers at you for a while, and remains in place.

“anyway, if you ever duel again, i want to be your second,” he insists. “y’know, ‘cause you’re good and all.”

you theoretically know what a second is, from reading and from playing. it’s the person who takes over for you if you fall. however, you’ve never had someone volunteer to take that role where you’re concerned.

“okay, then.”

you offer him your hand to shake.

instead of shaking your hand, he kisses it, and you’re momentarily confused. then you remember that you’re a girl and that sort of nonsense. in light of his action, you think of refusing the whole thing, but he probably didn’t mean any harm. you do your best to smile in return.

“does my second have a name, by any chance?” you ask him.

“augustine greengrass,” he responds. “you?”

“calypso shacklebolt.”

you think you might have seen greengrass before at one of those “social obligations”, but you’re not exactly sure. when you leave to go to mathematics, he waves at you over his shoulder.

“see you later, calypso!”

when you tell your uncle about it later, he seems pleased that you have finally made a friend, but frowns deeply when he hears what macnair said about you. he swears up and down to the contrary of that statement, and actually looks the angriest you’ve ever seen him.

“but he’s right,” you reply.

“no, he’s absolutely wrong. the worst sort of wrong, in fact,” he fumes. “i ought to go to madam selwyn’s and speak to them about letting him say such things.”

that would take him away from his work, and would also very likely embarrass you beyond belief.

“please don’t,” you beg him.

your uncle takes a knut out of his pocket, and drops it into your hand. the coin gleams in the light. he points first to your hand, and then to the knut.

“calypso, you are nearly the same shade as bronze. and you know of course, what they make out of bronze?”

“what?”

“money. they don’t make any of that in macnair’s color, do they?”

**may 1967**

augustine may be your second, and now your best friend, but he is also the person most likely to get you killed.

during one of those banal “social obligations”, he sneaks into his father’s broom closet and removes a cleansweep four. it’s evident from the way he handles it that this is far from the first time he’s done such a thing.

after he flies a few circles around the yard, and performs some impressively dizzying rollover thing, he descends and lands right in front of you, hopping off the broom with ease.

“now you try.”

you manage to fly in a terrified zig-zag for about two seconds, before you nearly crash into his house and break your neck. once you’re safely on the ground, you make to punch him, but instead of doing that, your fist connects with his shoulder and causes him to fly back about ten feet.

he lands in a crumpled, wincing heap.

mouth agape, he glares at you, although some of its venom is lost by the fact that he’s clearly scared of you at the moment.

“what’d you do that for?” he demands.

you kneel down and make sure that he’s alright, finally saying, in a small voice, “i was only trying to punch you, augustine, honest.”

he gets up, shakes his head at you, and grabs the handle of the cleansweep four. he takes a few moments to collect himself before he speaks.

“remind me to never try putting you on a broom again.”

**april 1970**

since your house elf is getting old, and your lessons at madam selwyn have lessened considerably - you’ll be going to real school this year, after all - you spend a lot of your time out of your uncle’s house and wandering wizarding britain with augustine.

technically, you’re supposed to be in the library in diagon alley, an excuse your uncle believes because you’re you. and you do start out in the library, you just find creative ways to end up elsewhere.

augustine introduces you to a few of his friends, but all of them are male, and all they ever do is talk about quidditch. you learn to bring something to read with you on these excursions. occasionally, though, they play wizard chess, and that’s entertaining to watch. less violent than quidditch, and requiring more careful thought.

when augustine, ignatius selwyn, and horatio avery grow bored with chess, they fall into discussions of the most pressing issue of your age - hogwarts.

“if i don’t end up in slytherin, i’ll jump into the great lake,” avery declares, skipping a few stones across a nearby creek to see how far into the air he can make them jump. you figure he’s trying to sail one clear to france, just to prove how good he is.

“agreed,” augustine says. “could you imagine being in hufflepuff?”

“not like you’d ever end up there, greengrass. they’re supposed to be hardworking,” selwyn quips. you laugh, covering your mouth with your hand the way you’ve seen other women do it. you may be amongst a bunch of boys, but you will not act undignified.

augustine glances between the two of you, and affects a look of dramatic betrayal.

“i work hard where it counts,” he maintains.

you scoff. “polishing your broom for five hours a day does not count as hard work.”

“working smart is infinitely better than working hard, anyway.”

“and seeing as you do neither…” you begin.

everyone laughs at that one, even augustine, grudgingly.

“who wants to be in hufflepuff, anyway?” selwyn asks. “that’s like having a sign on your back that says ‘hex me now’.”

avery grins. “suppose a hufflepuff gets angry after you’ve pantsed him for the tenth time and hurls a mandrake at you? what would you do then?”

“i think i’d be too dead to retort, in all honesty,” selwyn replies. “guess i’d haunt him, or something of the like. i’ll just hope they aren’t a mudblood, otherwise i’ll be disgraced into the afterlife.”

augustine nods. “agreed.”

your uncle would have a fit if he heard anything like this, of course. he’s the sort of wizard who acts as a proponent for wizard-muggle equality, technically a blood traitor. he’s too well-respected among his contemporaries for any to suggest such a thing, and the shacklebolt line is too old and renowned for such accusations to hold water. your uncle compares pureblood supremacy to muggle racism, now that you’re old enough to understand such things. “you’d be in the muggle world what muggleborns are here, calypso, never forget that.”

still, from what you’ve been told, muggleborns have no sense of poise or decorum. while you wouldn’t call one a mudblood, you wouldn’t want much to associate with one. besides, what if they were raised wrong, by the sort of parents who’d call you a nasty slur and to go back to your own country if they saw you in london?

your uncle insists muggles are no better or worse than wizards, but you beg to differ (though not out loud). one group can perform magic, and the other cannot. while discrimination based on skin tone has no basis, arguing that wizardkind is superior in at least one respect to muggles, well, you can understand that.

“what about you, shacklebolt?” selwyn asks. “what house do you think you’ll be in?”

you haven’t really thought about it much. you work hard, but that isn’t your most defining trait. you aren’t particularly valiant or foolhardy. you might be ambitious, but you’re not really sure. you are intelligent, though. you pride yourself on that.

“if cal doesn’t end up in ravenclaw, i’ll eat fabian prewett’s pants,” augustine insists. “if she does, you all owe me ten galleons.”

everyone looks over to you, and notices that you have a book in your lap, as you typically do. therefore, neither selwyn nor avery wishes to take that particular bet.

“ravenclaw works,” you conclude.

“enjoy being amongst the specky swots,” avery tells you. “think you’ll probably fit in, if you’re not bored half to death.”

you quirk an eyebrow. “why do you think i’d be bored to death?”

“ravenclaws don’t duel, that would be ignorant,” he informs you. “they have ten hour intellectual debates, instead.”

you don’t know if that’s necessarily true.

**august 1970**

you try out what has to be close to six wands before one finally “chooses you” as garrick ollivander puts it. springy, eleven and three-quarter inches, yew and unicorn tail.

when you touch it, a tingle begins in your hand, and vibrates down your arm. the wand itself lets out a small burst of flame as you raise it.

“a useful device to have as an ally, miss shacklebolt, a wand of yew,” the wizened man tells you, before boxing it and handing it over.

your uncle says nothing during the entire exchange, but congratulates you on having finally acquired a wand once you leave the shop.

“now you can stop exploding my crockery and calling it accidental,” he remarks.

**september 1970**

you were supposed to share a compartment with augustine, but of course once you get on the train, his is already crammed to the brim with boys and chatter. you decide to forgo trying to squeeze into that particular edifice, finally settling on a compartment that is mostly empty.  

“i hope you don’t mind if i stay here for the ride,” you tell the lone person in the carriage, a young woman, maybe about your age, with blonde hair and blue eyes.

“oh, no, not at all,” she says, clearing her things off the adjacent seat, and offering you a polite little smile. “i think i might rather have the company, since my sister is off patrolling.”

“patrolling?” you ask.

“yes, she’s been made head girl this year, which naturally comes with certain duties,” the girl explains. “i suppose she’s making sure no dueling is taking place in the corridors, or something of the sort.”

you nod, without commenting that you’d like to know if any dueling is taking place anywhere on this train, so you can go watch.

“how rude of me not to introduce myself,” she continues. “i’m narcissa. narcissa black.”

“calypso shacklebolt,” you reply.

she gives you a genuine smile for that, one that breaks through her genteel facade.

“oh, you’re a shacklebolt. i knew i recognized you somewhere,” she says. “probably at one of the gatherings at avery manor.”

you think you may have seen this girl, with her aristocratic features, and carefully arranged bun at some point or another, it’s hard to tell. most of the time, you were either trying not to fall asleep, or trying to keep augustine out of trouble. you don’t want to lie and say that you recognize her as well, so you decide on something else to say.

“it’s a pleasure to meet you,” you tell her.

“oh, but the pleasure is all mine,” she responds, as if from a carefully rehearsed script. at least you’ve read the same book, or had it drilled into you at madam selwyn’s. the two of you sit in silence for a while, as the train enters the countryside. then, the compartment door opens, a far older student with long, black hair and pale eyes standing in the doorway.

“sorry for abandoning you for a bit, cissa.” she tells narcissa. “the prewetts, dolohov, and rosier are at it again.”

“oh dear,” she replies.

the young woman already wears her robes, a slytherin tie, and a gleaming badge, and seems thoroughly exhausted.

“yeah, it’s been a nightmare. since i clearly can’t dock any points yet - thank merlin, since two of those fools are from my house -  i threatened all of them with twenty detentions if i see so much as an ‘expelliarmus’ out of them for the rest of the afternoon. wish i could petrify them all, to be honest.”

after that, her eyes alight on you, and it’s clear she’s not sure what to make of the situation. she looks back to narcissa.

“you made a friend already, cissy? i’m surprised.”

“an acquaintance."

the other young woman shakes her head gently, and gives you a reassuring grin.

“don’t mind my little sister, she’s like that around everyone,” she says very matter-of-factly. “i’m andromeda black. and you’re definitely a shacklebolt. cassandra is it?”

“calypso,” you correct. “close enough.”

“i’ll make a note of it, then.”

she extends her hand warmly, and you shake it, smiling in spite of yourself. there’s something about andromeda black that sets you at ease. she’s dignified but not stiff, and she seems genuinely happy to meet you.

“careful with that hair around narcissa,” she tells you, once she sits down across from you. she leans back in her seat, as if to spite her sister, who sits up ramrod straight, hands folded in her lap, and her legs crossed at the ankle. “if you stay too still, she’ll want to braid it.”

your hand involuntarily drifts to your shoulder-length spiral curls, which extend outward as well as down. you can’t imagine anyone ever trying to braid them.

“must you embarrass me, andy?” narcissa blushes and looks down at the floor, away from andromeda.

“it wasn’t my intent to embarrass you,” she says honestly, “i’m just trying to get you to loosen up a little, y’know, say something to break the ice. it’s your first year and we’re not even at school. you don’t need to look so serious yet.”

“you’re a first-year too?” you ask narcissa. she gives you a gentle nod.

“this is indeed my first year at hogwarts.”

“look how much you guys already have in common.” andromeda remarks, laughing at the pair of you. “ready to get sorted?”

“i believe i know where i’m going to end up,” narcissa says. “i hope.”

“i’ve been trying not to think about it excessively,” you confess.

you haven’t. you don’t like being in control, and you’re not too keen on some hat telling you where you’re set to spend the next seven years of your life.

“well, none of the houses are too awful, although slytherin is the best. then again, i’m probably slightly biased.”

you grin. that even gets the hint of a smile out of narcissa.  

an hour passes.

“i should probably make sure the head boy and prefects haven’t been hexed in their attempts to enforce law and order, but i’ll be back before the train pulls in, yeah?”

as soon as she leaves the compartment, and strolls out into the hallway, she starts yelling.

“oi! you lot!” she calls. “what’d i say about dueling in the… oh, it’s a different bunch of tossers this time.”

“we were just waving our wands at each other and stuff,” a voice that is unmistakably augustine’s says. “we’re only first years, i swear.”

you suppress the urge to laugh yourself silly, and only partially succeed. good old augustine.

“yeah, you two look like firsties. back to your compartments, both of you.”

it takes all the restrain you possess - quite a bit - to stop yourself from snorting into your cup of pumpkin juice.

“i gather that you know the boy in the hall?” narcissa asks.

“yeah, he’s my best friend. bit of an idiot, really.”

after you make your way to hogwarts in those unwieldy rowboats, everyone lines up for the sorting. you pay special attention to the outcomes chosen for your friends, and none of them are surprising.

_“avery, horatio?”_

_“slytherin!”_

it barely takes a second for that particular decision.

_“black, narcissa?”_

the hat stays on her head for a good fifty seconds, but finally calls out, _“slytherin!”_

_“greengrass, augustine?”_

the hat cries slytherin for him as well, about a half a minute later. he grins, and sits down next to avery.

_“selwyn, ignatius?”_

_“slytherin!”_

the line has shrunk considerably when the sorting hat finally asks for, “ _shacklebolt, calypso?”_

professor mcgonagall drapes the hat upon your head, and it covers your eyes.

“oh, another interesting one,” the hat remarks. “a difficult choice, indeed. you’ve got cunning, that can’t be denied, cunning and ambition. i even detect bravery in you. you’ll become the sort of young woman who will stand up for her ideals, whatever the price.”

you latch onto the hat’s first suggestion and beg for slytherin, but it continues as if it has not heard you.

“most of all, there’s intelligence, that and curiosity in excess. tell me, calypso, have any of your queries ever been answered to your satisfaction?”

you open your mouth to respond, but the hat silences you.

“that was a rhetorical question, you know.”

“oh,” you whisper.

“i know where your parents went, and i know where you uncle went, but what is your preference?”

as if you haven’t been thinking the same thing for the last five minutes. you don’t want to be alone. you remember what it's like. you're not keen on taking a refresher course.

you like ignatius, and augustine, and horatio, and even narcissa and her sister. 

“if that’s your final decision,” the hat smirks, “i suppose it’ll have to be… _slytherin!”_

the members of the furthest table break into applause for you. augustine pumps a victorious fist into the air. avery and selwyn hoot and holler, just to piss you off, and grin once you reach them.

you take the seat next to narcissa, who nods and moves over to accommodate you, while andromeda beams. a few people over, augustine grins and nods emphatically at you, mouthing the words, “good choice”.

although he’s lost his bet, he’s relieved. both of you are.

on your way to the dungeons, an hour and change later, when you can walk side by side again, you gaze up at him and grin.

“not like they could ever separate us.”

too true, they could not.

“nobody would dream of putting us in different houses, not even ancient bloody sorting hats,” augustine insists.

narcissa catches up to you in the dormitory, and has her own words for you.

“i am very glad to see you here.”

you glance around the dungeons, at your green and silver bed hangings, feeling the chill of the great lake even despite the warming charms that have surely been cast around the slytherin part of the building.

“i’m happy to see you too, cissa.”

she looks at you with soft wonder and tells you how her sisters have always called her cissy.

then, she spends most of the night in your bed, just so she can braid your hair. she’s too anxious to sleep. as it turns out, her fingers are deft enough that they can make sense of your hair’s texture.

in morning, you wear a chignon almost identical to hers. however, your braids are looser, and you have a dragonfly pendant pinned to your left temple. arm-in-arm, the two of you make your way to your first lesson for the morning, for your first lesson ever - transfiguration.

 


End file.
